BraveDemon

I know this question has been asked, but why not go carbon fiber hood and trunk?

Light weight wheels?

And what about race/bucket seats?

Those mods would save you tons of weight. Of course it appears like you're just stripping the TL (minus the UR pulley), in which case, you've certainly done a good job of shedding alot of weight by merely removing stuff.

Aslo quick question: is your TL an auto or manual? I would imagine a manual TL may weigh slightly less than an auto, but I'm not sure by how much.

uwccpan

Since you are not carrying anyone in your 06TL, why not remove all your backseats?


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ACTROS

iTrader: (7)

How about removing the rear seat belts and their hardware, they add up to heavy! You can't tell that they were removed either, unless you specifically look for them, like when the passenger wants to buckle up, oops. But who ever does?

joed40

Because his wife would find out that he butchered their car and she would kick his ass or worse!

Eoanou

That's quiet a good idea, my vote is for removing the rear seatbelts and its hardware.

Inaccurate

LOL !!! I love these type of jokes, seriously. Thanks for the laugh. There is a lot of truth in this joke to some extent. On the otherhand, she tells me "If it makes you happy, I'm ok with it". But, you know women.... If I pushed it too much (if she only knew of all the missing stuff), I would maybe find the limit of her "support".

PeteThaPitbull

you should test how much quicker your car can lanch from lets say.. 0-60 with all the weight removed compared to a stock TL

uwccpan

thats a good idea. after all these hard work, lets see if you can get 1 second faster.

Devastation

anything on after market seats?

Inaccurate

Oh yea ! It now launches much quicker than oem. No comparison. When I do a jack-rabbit start from a light, I get a hugh grin. The last time that I nailed it thru first gear (auto trans), the traction-control light flashed all the way thru first gear. And, this was on a concrete (not asphalt) road.

I have a few more additions (deletions ???) to my TL Diet that I am working on. After that, I will try to hit the track to get an ET.

Eoanou

Let us know I'm anxious to see improvements, although we have no base run to gauge your improvements, oh well.



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Inaccurate

UPDATE

I GOT ANOTHER 26 POUNDS OFF OF THE CAR !!!!!

:gheywave:


Well, it has been awhile since my last update. And, my thread hasn’t been “feeling any hate” lately.
So, here’s an update.

I have more deletions planned. Unfortunately, those involve $$$ to accomplish. Talk to you soon.


Weight Reduction Since Last Update
-----------------------------------------------
8.5 Seat belts for rear seat
5.5 Rear deck
5.0 Parking brake lever (inside car)
3.0 Megan pipe replacing oem 3rd cat
2.0 Personal weight loss (attributed to this project)
1.2 Xm radio reciever
1.0 Exhaust heat shield
--------------------------------------------
26.2 Lbs Total



Movie time


Pile of seat belts after being unbolted.




Rear deck laying on upholstery material.







The deck made of upholstery material looks a little ghetto, but I never have passengers anyway. In the pics, the headrest is removed to show the radio speaker mounted on top of the covering. After the pic, I replaced both headrest.

The color of the upholstery material matches better with the car than how it appears in the pics.

In the future, I will do it again using black-color foam. The upholstery material has too many sags.






Here is the parking-brake lever removed. I made a plug from foam to cover the opening.




Here is the Megan pipe used to replace the oem 3rd cat.







ITEMIZED LIST OF WEIGHT REDUCTION
--------------------------------------------------
40.0 Reduced fuel (buy just 4.5 gallons at a time)
40.0 Rims
34.0 Spare tire (use lightweight 12V air pump)
27.5 Braille battery
23.0 Trunk panels
17.5 Parking brake and lever (see Warning #1 below)
17.0 Front bumper
16.0 Rear bumper
13.0 Personal weight loss (attributed to this project)
10.0 Front seat kick panels
9.0 Side curtain airbags (see Warning #2 below)
8.5 Mid muffler
8.5 Seat belts for rear seat
8.0 CAI
7.5 Front damper
7.0 UR Crank pulley
6.0 Engine bay panels
6.0 Rear seat arm rest
5.5 Subwoofer Speaker
5.5 Ground effect panels
5.5 Rear deck
5.0 Floor mats
4.0 Reduced wiper fluid (use 1 pint at a time)
3.7 Rear seat insulation
3.5 Engine cradle damper
3.5 Small airbags in front seats (see Warning #2 below)
3.0 Megan pipe replacing oem 3rd cat
2.5 Glovebox plate
2.4 Owner manual
1.8 Hood insulation
1.5 Trunk damper
1.5 Splash guards for front brake rotors
1.2 Xm radio reciever
1.0 Exhaust heat shield
0.5 Coin holder & sunglass holders
---------------------------------------------
350 Lbs TOTAL



EQUIVALENT WEIGHT REDUCTION
-------------------------------------------
303 Static weight loss
105 equivalent weight loss from UR Pulley
120 equivalent weight loss from rims
------------------------------------------------------------
528 Lbs TOTAL (equivalent weight reduction)



Warning #1: Parking brake is mandatory to pass state inspection in many states.
Warning #2: Tampering with oem airbags is illegal in many states.




-------- The TL Diet: Woo Hoo, What a Ride !!! --------

aznbo187

iTrader: (1)

Nice work! So the 3rd cat didn't really do much for performance, nor sound huh?

Bearcat94

Dude, you scare me. A little TOO OCD for me. LOL.

But I did think about you/your thread earlier today. Got home from the Driving Range and took my clubs out right away. Didn't want to go out later lugging around the extra weight.

Turns out, I did go out later. To get groceries.

Inaccurate

I agree. It is an addiction (I am serious). I find myself fixating on what the hell I can remove next. It's a "snowball effect". The more I remove, the more fun it is to drive the car (especially handling and braking), the more I am driven to remove something to get more of that feeling. Pure definition of an addiction !!!

Agree about the groceries too. Only thing going thru my head is I can't wait to get home to dump this stuff (weight).

Inaccurate

Zip. Nothing. My configuartion is a Stage 1. Everything is oem with just the MidMuff deleted. And, now the Megan.

The only thing that I got from the Megan was a 3-lb weight loss and major bling. It is built damn well... actually, perfectly built. I am very anal and I could not find a single blemish or flaw. It is a "work of art" in its construction (beautiful weld beads too). But, no performance gain nor sound difference on my car.

Shalooby

Why don't you take out the rear window motors and all the hardware? All those components must account for a lot of excess weight. I'm sure you could figure out a way to lock them up. Now that you've taken out the rear seat belts you won't have anyone riding back there anyway right?

Inaccurate

LOL. Serously. Thanks for the laughter. I am coming up will all sotra jokes here.

"Don't get in that car - - the suicide car."

"Hell, my passenger won't notice the missing seat belts. They are to busy looking for the side air bags."

"They will never notice the lack of air bags and seat belts. Anyone getting in the back seat will be too distracted by the missing rear deck and the back of the seat missing."

Costco

As for the comments for the parking brake a couple of pages back.... its a parking brake, not an emergency brake. Manufacturers no longer call it a e-brake either because of lawsuits from people suing over the e-brake not being able to prevent a collision.

I would love to see someone immediately yank on the parking brake as soon as they realize and accident is imminent. Darwinism at its finest....

TCM 01 CL-S

Very, Very True! If there is one guarenteed way to get your car to end up sideways or in a ditch, pulling the hand brake in an emergency situation is the way to do it.

KenUA6

seen you took the seatbelt off why dont you take out the back seat as well that about 100-120 lbs over there

Eoanou

Actually I think he said the back seat wasn't that heavy, he said the foam behind the seat covers only weigh 10~15lbs.

Eoanou

Hey if you've got a few thousand laying around, I vote for a full carbon fiber body, that'll be 200lbs at least.

A friend of mine knows of someone who did that on they're M3 and lost 175lbs.

Inaccurate

Regarding taking the back seats out all together -

As "Eoanou" mentioned, I had lightly discussed this in the past. The next time I have the rear seat apart, I will weigh it for reference. It is hard to speculate the weight of the back seat in terms of actual pounds. You know how it is. The brain is very easly tricked by the size of the object versus the wieght (aka, density). So, what I am trying to say is that the rear seat is not heavy for it's size.

Why not take it out completely ? If my car was older and had 100,000 miles, I would consider taking it out completely. But, my car has just 18,000 miles and I am just now getting past that stage of worrying about every little scratch.

HQTL6SPD

hey inaccurate, is the pipe you installed considered a cat or a resonator?

how much? and where did you get it? i may do this too :thumbup:

ACTROS

iTrader: (7)

^If I may,

They give it all kinds of names, hi-flow cat, straight pipe, test pipe, resonator, etc., which is confusing and inaccurate in some cases! Megan calls their pipe a resonator!

This particular pipe is just that a straight through pipe a.k.a. test pipe!

You can find one on Ebay for less than a $100 shipped!

Inaccurate

I agree with this explanation except for one thing. The Megan is Not just a pipe. That thing is a "work of love and a work of art !!!". The Megan is built damn well, and I will dare to say it is built perfect from a material perspective. Damn attactive too. All stainless steel material, perfect fit, perfect welding beads with perfect penatration, and polished to a chrome-like finish.

I purchase mine from http://stores.ebay.com/Tuningpros. Please see the linked post below for more details (links, price, part numbers, review, pics). In the linked thread, scroll down to the 7th post on page 5 that is from me.


Swaping out the cat for a straight pipe? (click here)


Or click here to be taken directly to my post on page 5 (click here)




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Inaccurate

UPDATE

I GOT ANOTHER 36 POUNDS OFF OF THE CAR !!!!!

:gheywave::gheywave:


By chance, I ran across the topic of "rear seat delete" on Google while searching for something else. I was surprised to see that it is a common mod and that it had an official label ("rear seat delete").

When someone ("KenUA6", thank you) in this thread recently suggested this mod, I had pictured the naked car frame being exposed with the seat removed. And, I did not consider it as an option for me. However, after I saw pics of several "rear seat delete" mods on Google, I quickly decided this was do-able for my TL Diet.

I am Not happy with how the car looks with the upholstery in place of the seat. It is a dilemma. However, after driving the car on the first day with the seat removed did cinch the deal. The performance increase (mainly braking) is too drastically increased to turn my back on this mod. I am willing to sacrifice the appearance to gain the performance (mainly braking and handling). Plus, this mod is quickly reversible. Give me an hour, and I will have the rear seat looking oem again. This is how I sold it to the wife.

My car has finally reached the point where there is no body roll with fast corning (it has oem sway bars). The car now will easily brake from 100 mph down to 60 mph in a heartbeat with no nose diving, no drama or misbehavior. It now decelerates so strongly that I had to pin the sunroof cover (in the open position) to prevent it from slamming closed during heavy braking.

The rear seat weighs 48 lbs. If we include the rear seatbelts too, then it would be 57 lbs. Because I removed some items earlier (arm rest, seatbelts, insulation), my rear seat weighed 38.5 lbs (w/o arm rest & insulation). The upholstery used to replace the seat weighed just 2.5 lbs. The net weight saving is 36.0 lbs.

As Arnold ("The Terminator") would say, "I'll be back" !!!

"I'll be back to terminate more weight !!!"






------ Movie time ------














Below is how the car really appears in real life without the strong light from the camera flash. The windows have heavy tinting so it is somewhat dark back there.




Perhaps I should just get a car like this blue one. But, I would need to figure out how to make my 3.2 engine fit into it. By the way, this is a pic that I took while vacationing in Europe. The little car is popular in the UK.




ITEMIZED LIST OF WEIGHT REDUCTION
-----------------------------------------------------
40.0 Reduced fuel (buy just 4.5 gallons at a time)
40.0 Rims
36.0 Rear seat delete
34.0 Spare tire (use lightweight 12V air pump)
27.5 Braille battery
23.0 Trunk panels
17.5 Parking brake and lever (see Warning #1 below)
17.0 Front bumper
16.0 Rear bumper
13.0 Personal weight loss (attributed to this project)
10.0 Front seat kick panels
9.0 Side curtain airbags (see Warning #2 below)
8.5 Mid muffler delete
8.5 Seatbelts for rear seat
8.0 CAI
7.5 Front damper
7.0 UR Crank pulley
6.0 Engine bay panels
6.0 Rear seat arm rest
5.5 Subwoofer Speaker
5.5 Ground effect panels
5.5 Rear deck
5.0 Floor mats
4.0 Reduced wiper fluid (use 1 pint at a time)
3.7 Rear seat insulation
3.5 Engine cradle damper
3.5 Small airbags in front seats (see Warning #2 below)
3.0 Megan pipe replacing oem 3rd cat
2.5 Glovebox plate
2.4 Owner manual
1.8 Hood insulation
1.5 Trunk damper
1.5 Splash guards for front brake rotors
1.2 Xm radio reciever
1.0 Exhaust heat shield
0.5 Coin holder & sunglass holders
------------------------------------------------------------
386 Lbs TOTAL



EQUIVALENT WEIGHT REDUCTION
----------------------------------------------
339 Static weight loss
105 equivalent weight loss from UR Pulley
120 equivalent weight loss from rims
---------------------------------------------
564 Lbs TOTAL (equivalent weight reduction)



ESTIMATED CURB WEIGHT
------------------------------------
3580 - 386 = 3194 Static
3580 - 564 = 3016 Dynamic



EQUIVALENT HP INCREASE
------------------------------------
(3580 lbs / 3016 lbs) x 258 hp = 306 HP (equivalent)
306 hp - 258 hp = 48 HP (equivalent increase)

Note: This is not just peak hp increase. This is
an equivalent increase across entire rpm range.



Warning #1: Parking brake is mandatory to pass state inspection in many states.
Warning #2: Tampering with oem airbags is illegal in many states.






-------- The TL Diet: Woo Hoo, What a Ride !!! --------

HQTL6SPD

Hey inaccurate, what is the length of the resonator part of the pipe? i remember you saying its hollow/not insulated, does this mean that it barely reduces sound or does it heighten it?

ChucksCL-S

Is you car sitting up higher on the springs now? Does it look like it needs to be lowered? Just curious...

ChucksCL-S

Another thought, our front seats are VERY heavy. I had mine out (2000 TL) years ago to replace the heated seat element. You could go to lightweight racing seats, or if you like the OE look keep them but remove the electric motors as I'm sure they weigh a few pounds. If only you drive the car the seat never needs to move once set where you like it. Also maybe all the window lift motors except the driver's door. If you have a sunroof remove all that hardware and replace it with a piece of plexiglass. BTW Arnold is the man!

Inaccurate

Megan does call it a resonator. However, it is not really a resonator functionally. Seems like they are trying to fool someone. They call it a resonator and they add that inner tube with the small hole perforations like a real resonator. But, without the sound-damping material, it ain't no resonator funtionally.

The inner tube with the small hole perforations is approx 7 inches.

I notice an extremely small increase in sound while idling in gear, such as waiting at a red light. Plus, a extremely small increase in sound while accelerating at a normal pace (light throttle) up to approx 20 - 30 mph. Other than those two situations, I notice no difference in sound level. There is no sound difference at WOT that I can hear.

Inaccurate

Surprisingly not too much. Check out the pictures of my car on page 10 of this thread. My car does have a lot of wheel gap, but most of the gap came from the smaller diameter tires (255/40-17).

Eoanou

Just curious, you said that the wheels gave you a weight loss of 40lbs and an equivanlent weight loss of 120lb since it's rotational you used an equation that would give a refrence to what the equivanlent static weight would be, but I'm curious if the equivelant weight loss would only work for the front tires because the car is front wheel drive, and basically the rear tires are dragging along, so wouldn't the equivalent weight loss be a little less since the equation for rotational weight doesn't really apply to the rear wheels. I'm not sure if you understand what I'm saying, but I hope you do.

Eoanou

Also the wheels are really growing on me, and I'm considering purchasing them.

Inaccurate

Eoanou,

It applies to all four wheels equally. Because all four wheels must increase their rotational speed (RPM) equally, all four wheels benefit equally from the equivalent performance gain of the reduced rotating mass.

It has nothing what-so-ever to do with if the wheel is a "driving wheel" (applying power to the ground). It is only the “flywheel effect” that matters, and all four wheels experience the same “flywheel effect”.

Inaccurate

Eoanou,

In case you overlooked it on page 10, here is some info on the rims.

The rims are Motegi TrakLite 2.0. The rims weight 14.5 lbs each. The factory rims weight 24.5 lbs each. I purchased the rims from www.TireRack.com. The website for Motegi is www.motegiracing.com.

The rims are one-piece forged. The price from www.TireRack is $288 each. The factory TPMS sensors fits perfectly. The offset is 45, exactly as stock. The rims are 17x8, exactly as stock.

Be sure you get the correct wheel lugs for the new rims. Do not use your oem lugs on the aftermarket rim.

HQTL6SPD

other than warranty and a brand name, could i go wrong buying either of these? What about fitment? They look just right. What should the total length of the pipe be?

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Hi-Fl...spagenameZWDVW

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Stain...spagenameZWDVW

you say the one you have isn't insulated, so i wanna take my chances on one of these two. Anybody ever try either one of these? I guess i can just ask the sellers too..

Inaccurate

HQTL6SPD,

I bet you "a dollar to a donut" that those are both Megan brands. Great price although.

The 44.99 pipe looks to be a Megan for sure from the photo. The 35.00 pipe does look different in the photo but I still bet that it is the same Megan piece.

As long as it is spec'ed for the Accord 2003+, it should fit fine.

Eoanou

Which lugs are you using?

By the way thank you for mentioning that I would need to get a different set of lugs, I probably would have ended up using the OEM ones.



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